This is not an Essay. It is an Equation.

This is not an essay. It is an equation. 

The brain seeks patterns as a matter of survival. My mind’s ability to do this is, people say, borderline savant. My inability to stop it is, I say, borderline insanity.

It is a fact of my life. I am counting ad infinitum, ad nauseam, ad hoc. Doing the math in days and dates and minutes and seconds—in increments measuring every moment that brought me to now. Working out the problem, looking for the solution, trying to find that pattern that is going to save my life. 

Or someone else’s. 

In my work, I have been able to take this crippling fact of the way my mind turns things over and over, rearranging the numbers, multiplying then dividing, adding and subtracting, wishing I hadn’t skipped Calculus then wondering if it would’ve helped anyway, and put it to use. It seldom seems a burden any longer. 

Except on days like this: 

August 6, 2015 

My first diagnostic mammogram. Words are heavy with meaning. Latch onto them. Key word: diagnostic. Read the ICD9 code on the referral form the doctor sends. Try to make it say something else. Will it away. My will is worthless. I promise you that. 

24 years, 1 month, 20 days from the day breast cancer destroyed my world. 

When I was 24 years, 1 month, 20 days old I was drinking myself to death. 

That was 13 years ago. 

I was 13 years old when my mother died.

It was 10 years ago that I stopped trying to die. 

I was 10 years old the first time my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. 

It was 3 years from her first diagnosis to her death. 

I have loved my husband for 3 years. 

August 6, 2015 

Four months to the day from the December morning on which I will have outlived my mother upon waking. 

When my mother died from breast cancer, she had been married to the man of her dreams for seven months. 

In December, I will be married to the man of my dreams for 7 months. 

Every woman on my mother’s side of the family for 3 generations has battled breast cancer. 

3 generations.

4 women. 

I am 5. 

2 of 4 succumbed. 

I am 5. 

I am 5 and I am 13 and I am 37. 

I am living with a time bomb strapped to my chest. I am living. There they are again.
Words, heavy with meaning. 

I am living. 

The brain seeks patterns, searches for ways to survive. To carry the narrative. To tell the story. To do the math. 

When I stopped trying to drink myself to death long enough to listen, I was taught to mentally file things into one of 2 categories: things I can change and things I can’t. I was taught to seek the wisdom to know the difference between the 2. 

Tell me: if you were walking through life with a timebomb strapped to your chest, would you take it off? Or would you wear it? Waiting for detonation day?

13 year old me says it doesn’t matter because nothing works out anyway. 

24 year old me pours herself another drink. 

37 year old me does the math and says it matters. 

It all matters. Every moment that brought me to now. 

She dials the surgeon the specialist gave her the number for. 

10 digits. On her hands. In the number. 

The phone rings 4 times. She forgets to count the words in the greeting. Neglects to commit to memory the words aside from the promise of a call within 48 hours.

Leaves a message, 24 seconds. Knows a return call will come. 

Confident that when it does, she will answer. 

Adding a new date to the equation.